Thursday, June 29, 2006

Free Download of New Slightly-Controversial “Weird Al” Song

My favorite parodist, "Weird Al" Yankovic is back... almost. His new album, due this month, has been delayed. It may have something to do with a bit of controversy over his parody of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful". Seems that, while Blunt is ok with the parody, his record label, Atlantic, isn't. And rather than get on the bad side of a whole label, Al's label would rather release the album sans Bluntness. So... Al's giving it away for free on his web site. It's funny.

For more on the controversy, check out this NPR article. I hope we see the album soon.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

The Jelly Jam

The Jelly JamThe Jelly Jam. For those of you not familiar The Jelly Jam is a project that drew together nearly the complete line up of Platypus. Tabor (King's X), Myung (Dream Theater), and Morgenstein (The Dixie Dregs) returned sans the keyboards of Derek Sherinian. The result is fantastic. As a long time King's X fan, I have enjoyed Tabor's solo and side project work. The Jelly Jam is the self titled first release for this line up. Though not nearly new (released in 2002), I have just managed to get a copy a few months ago. What a mistake it was to not get this sooner. The first few times through the album was familiar. It had a distinct King's X feel that I could not decide if I appreciated or not. The same harmonic flair can be found throughout the album, especially on one of my favorite tracks "Under the Tree". The more I listened the more I grew to just love this album. The crown jewel is of course the self titled song on the self titled album, The Jelly Jam. This instrumental romp showcases the musicianship of the collected masters and justifies the existence of such a prog rock supergroup (why can't they have a show on VH1). The Jelly Jam is a well crafted album that fans of Dream Theater and King's X will greatly love.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Wolfmother

Wolfmother

Poor neglected web site. It's not that I stopped listening to music, it's just that I was getting back into a lot of old favorites that you guys already know about. As you might know, I like to organize my music with MediaMonkey and I like to rate my songs. It makes it so that I can make smart playlists based on what I like (or don't like). I also use the ratings as a starting point to make "Ultimate " playlists (my own custom Greatest Hits collections). So in the past 5-months, I've gone through some of my much beloved classic bands and listened to everything and rated all the tracks. This includes Genesis, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Beastie Boys, PFR, Jars of Clay, Material Issue, Van Halen and Rush. So, you know... that took a while.

But I have been checking out some new stuff here and there and my new favorite band of the moment is Wolfmother. Three guys from Australia that Rich described over the phone to me as "the second coming of Led Zeppelin". That didn't get me excited, though, because that's what people said about Kingdom Come and, well... bleccchh. But then I made the connection... Kingdom Come was a project by Lenny Wolf and the band I'm hearing about now is Wolfmother. And, you know... you can make any sort of connection you want there. I really don't have a good joke to go here, so I think I'll just get to the point. Wolfmother rocks. AMG doesn't like the album as much as I do and I can understand their problems with the album, but I'm having a good time every time I put the album on and that's what counts, right?